Monday, August 31, 2015

Rejection Blues

Daniel Lobo
Are you a fiction writer or poet? Do you submit your work? Then, if you're like most of us, you receive rejections. Do you sometimes wonder if the polite note you receive is the magazine's boilerplate or something that indicates a higher level of rejection? Then there's a wiki you might find fascinating, the Rejection Wiki. It shows the standard rejections text and higher-level rejections text from hundreds of journals.

Don't let those rejections get you down; rejection is part of the life of a writer. I average placing a story for every 11 submissions. Some do better, some worse. The difference between a published and unpublished author is often perseverance, not talent.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

The Last Policeman, a Mystery Novel

Alphadesigner
Occasionally I'll run across a story concept that I unabashedly envy and wish I'd conceived. Such is the conceit behind the novel The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters. This mystery, winner of an Edgar Award a few years ago, is set almost in present time, but in an America that has just learned that a planet-killing asteroid is on a collision course with Earth within the year.

Against the backdrop of societal anger and resignation, of the decay of essential services, the main character attempts to solve what he believes to be a murder in Concord, New Hampshire. Having just achieved his long-held ambition to be a police detective, he puts aside thoughts of his imminent death and pursues his first and probably last real case.

The main character is nicely wrought, sympathetic and competent, although some episodes of self-doubt might have been edited out without hurting the story. Support characters are well done, as well. The plot is workmanlike, nicely capturing the zeitgeist of the time. There is a secondary plot line that is left unsatisfyingly open, a obvious invitation to read the sequel.

The writing style doesn't get in the way of the plot, but serves the purpose well. If you're looking for a quick read that will raise more than a few "What if" questions, you might enjoy this book.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Coney Cuisine


My friend Ron and I have reserved no expense in pursuing our quest to find the best hot dogs in Columbus. Today we tried the city's oldest (over 100 years) and most revered coney dog palace, Phillip's Original Coney Island. Once a staple of the north side when High Street south of OSU campus was very iffy, it now occupies a large and comfortable building with plenty of parking on West Broad Street near the old Cooper Stadium.

Ron had been a regular at the old Phillip's 50 years ago, and I'm pleased to report he found the current offerings just as good as  he remembered. I found the dog with coney sauce, onions, mustard and cheese had the perfect combination of spice and meatiness. The dog was well cooked (Skyline Chili, you of the raw dog, take note), the sauce a mild but flavorful accoutrement, and even the buns were fresh. (Stale buns are a pet peeve we encounter all too often).

Both of us usually prefer the Chicago-style hot dog, but for a change of pace, these coneys hit the spot. And did I mention they were dirt-cheap?

Monday, August 17, 2015

Mr. Holmes and the Human Being


Jon Seidman
I'm not one to read reviews of movies beforehand, as I find my tastes are not those of the general public. Sometimes this works to my disadvantage, as it did with the recent release, Mr. Holmes. I had the general impression that the critics had viewed it favorably, but had no idea about the plot except for the notion that it dealt with his last case. Given that, I expected a mystery story along the lines of the Jeremy Britt television episodes, but with better acting, since Ian McKellen was portraying Holmes. I prayed that it was not another Guy Richie fiasco.

Therefore I was quite surprised to find the mystery was not the focus of this story. Instead, it provided a fascinating study of the Holmes character, exploring his dotage. Why make this a Holmes story instead of creating a new character, since it wasn't a mystery story? The answer is simple; the groundwork had already been done in establishing the character, a man famous for being analytical, cold, and a bit of a misanthrope. Therefore, the director and writer were free to focus on the process of evolving him to a new state of mind, something done with great subtlety.

McKellen's acting was sublime, and the surrounding cast, especially his child friend, were excellent. While the film progressed rather slowly at the beginning, by the end it was most satisfying. I won't spoil the film with details, but I highly recommend this if you like films that explore character, and can put aside the ghosts of Basil Rathbone, Britt, Robert Downey Jr. (Yech!) and that Cummerbund fellow.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

My mystery story "Vigilante"

http://www.fictionmagazines.com/shop/heater-issues/heater-vol-03-no-07/
My mystery story "Vigilante" appears in the latest issue of Heater Magazine. In a world of declining markets for crime fiction, Heater still brings the heat.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

The Congress- What The Film?

Ian Burt


About ten years ago I wrote a story set in the near future about a Hollywood agent that represented not living actors but the estates of dead ones, selling the right to use their digital recreation in new films. His main client? Dale Evans, Roy Rogers' wife.

I was delighted to discover that this was the conceit behind the sci-fi film The Congress, in which the wooden Harvey Keitel (how does he get so many good roles when the man can't act?), as the agent of real-life actress Robin Wright of Princess Bride and Forrest Gump fame, is offered a bundle of money for the rights to her digital image in perpetuity. At the thirty-minute mark, I understood what was going on and was looking forward to seeing how it played out.

Then all hell broke loose. Jumping 20 years into the future, the film, based on a story by Stanislaw Lem, turned into a cartoon. Literally. In this cartoon universe, people could snort a pharmaceutical that allowed them to create their own reality. Apparently, most people's reality looks a lot like the introduction to Monty Python's Traveling Circus with bits of R. Crumb, Walt Disney and Georgia O'Keeffe thrown in. Through this acid-trip of a film I desperately clung to the thread of a plot in which Wright attempts to reconnect with her son. I think (not sure) that this happened in the end.

This was no low-budget effort. The cast alone (which also included Paul Giamatti and Jon Hamm) must have set them back a few bucks, and the hour of animation, although far short of Pixar quality, didn't come cheap.

Critics were sharply divided on this film. The ones that favored it seemed to be able to follow the plot much better than I; I found many WTF moments in the last half of the film. Wright struggled mightily to bring humanity to her role, but the animation overwhelmed the acting. When a flower is growing out of a character's forehead it's easy to lose track of her dialogue.

This is a film with wild ambition but modest accomplishment. Don't expect Roger Rabbit. If you've ever tripped out on mescaline while attending Burning Man, you might grok this movie.

I knew there was something missing from my bucket list.
  

Friday, August 7, 2015

95ers: Time Runners

Photo by fdecomite
Time travel is so seductive to Hollywood movie makers that we continue to see films based on this premise despite what I perceive as lackluster success, both thematically and financially. When I watch a movie such as 95ers: Time Runners, I can't help but wonder if I'm the stupid one for failing to unravel the Gordian Knot that the film presents in its time travel plot. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not; it's often the film maker that is to blame for the confusion.
You see, film makers are drawn to the premise, "What if I could change the past/future?" This plot concept is so rich in possibilities that they can't resist making the movie, but when they actually get to the point where they need to explain how time travel works and what its impact would be, they realize they have no idea. At that point, they do a bunch of hand-waving, using jargon and fancy graphics to disguise the fact that their plot makes no sense.
And you know, I'm OK with that. If the story is strong  enough (12 Monkeys, for example) I'm willing to concede some illogic. It's not as though I haven't done some hand-waving in my own fiction.
 However, in 95ers: Time Runners, that personal story was so unclear that I never fell into lockstep with the main  character, and consequently the ambiguous ending left me dissatisfied. There was also some weak acting, some unsubtle storytelling (some minor characters were rehearsing the classic time-travel tale A Christmas Story throughout the film), and a great deal of confusion about who wanted what and when.
I give it credit for ambition, and the production values were fine, especially for a low-budget film. If I had more time, I might watch it again to see if it made more sense, but I can only go forward in time, as best as I can tell, and those hours are precious.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Ex Machina Exhumed

photo by Filter Forge
Deus ex machina, God from the machine, is a phrase used today to indicate a plot device in which an irresistible force out of the heavens comes in unexpectedly to rescue a story that has hit a dead end. It's a temptation that every novice writer must learn to avoid.
However in the film Ex Machina, the phrase is used unironically. The film is about the singularity, the moment when artificial intelligence becomes self-aware, with its own agenda. As a topic, I find this fascinating, so why wasn't I fascinated with the film?
I thought there were four flaws that made my viewing experience less than enthralling:
1. I never learned enough about the main character early in the film to empathize with him, or properly motivate some of his actions.
2. The editing was awkward, leaving me at times unsure what I was seeing with the quick cuts.
3. The Dr. Frankenstein character was just annoying. He was much more evil than earnest, and a more subtle film would have played this differently.
4. The story suddenly became hers, not his, late in the film.
The last is perhaps the most grievous flaw. I wanted to see resolution in his struggle to come to terms with his relationship with the robot.
The film was not with merit, though. The seduction scenes between the main character and the robot (and not with the dynamics you might expect) were very well done, and thought-provoking. What will be the relationship between A.I. beings and humans once the technology has arrived?
This will be a real question within the lifetime of some of you reading this, I believe. Maybe even within mine.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Travelling Salesman

Photo by Antonia Hayes

You have $25,000, what do you do? A fine vacation? Remodel your home? Go to college for two semesters? If you're a filmmaker, you make a science-fiction feature-length film. That's what Director Timothy Lanzone did with the intellectual diatribe Travelling Salesman. The film's subject is math; the title comes from the mathematical challenge of finding the most efficient route for a salesman visiting a number of cities, which is surprisingly complex.
I can't say it's the most entertaining of films; for the most part, five white male characters sit in a plain room arguing the ethical use of a mathematical breakthrough that would allow hackers free reign in once-secure sites. Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb serves as the key analogy.
Not having math chops, I found the conversation a bit confusing at times, but what I did understand seemed belabored. I can watch a stage play that is simply dialogue, but it must evolve. This one didn't, at least not to my satisfaction.
Still, it's professionalism is quite an accomplishment, for $25K. If you're the type of viewer who enjoys C-Span, you might enjoy this film too.

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Psychedelic Cinema

 I'm still trying to digest the film The Zero Theorem by Terry Gilliam, he of Brazil and Twelve Monkeys fame. Set in the usual bizarre future that exists in his head, it is the story of a man looking for meaning in the world at the same time he is tasked with finding a mathematical proof that life has no meaning. Much like the homily about a man looking for a sign from God while ignoring all of the people God sends with a message, the main character spurns the love of a woman who offers him as much meaning as a non-believer can find in life.

The story dragged at times, and the conclusion was a bit of a downer, but the acting was superb and those visual bits that Gilliam always manages to inject into his films kept amusing me. There are a lot worse ways of wasting celluloid and a couple of hours. Check it out, if you can handle a little psychedelic cinema.

I'll Follow You Down


I watched another film yesterday, the time-travel movie from 2012 I'll Follow You Down. Unlike many stories in this genre, the time travel wasn't the point of the movie. The struggle between one's devotion to family and his/her life work was played out in three relationships, between the inventor of time travel and his wife (Skully of the X-Files), between her son (Haley Joel Osment, the star of my favorite film, The Sixth Sense) and his fiancee, and between the time traveler and his father. It held little in the way of surprises, one predictable episode following another, until a nice twist at the end elevated it a bit in my eyes. I wouldn't call it a waste of time, which in my jargon is a modicum of praise.